Victorian Shotguns and Dogs Photo Quiz
 

Well, my bracket is in tatters and is raining today. So, I thought I’d start a quiz based on a vintage photograph I paid too much for but fell in love with. Looking to come up with a consensus on the makes of the guns, and breeds of the dogs. So, going left to right please give me your guesses/thoughts on each hunter’s shotgun and dog. Bonus question is the year you think it was taken. My untrained eyes think they see two Parker’s. Note, I have not taken this out of the frame, but I will after I compile everyone’s guesses. Hoping for some info on the back of the picture. Time starts now...

I think No.'s 2 and 4 are Parkers and the dogs are - No.'s 1 and 2 are English setters 3 is a Brittany spaniel and 4 looks like an Irish/English setter cross-breed.


Edit: - No. 3 can't be a Brit. Not in this country til 1920's.





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The Formula 1 season started this weekend. Life is good. The Scuderia is back!!

Gun No. 3 is one of the top-lever Remington Hammer Doubles 1882 to 89 can't tell which. Gun No. 1 appears to be some kind of side-lever. Whether a quality English gun or JABC I can't tell.

I belive the time frame to be about 1885...charlie

Brits were introduced in the US in the late 1920s.

Close ups

Close ups posted Researcher...

3 Eng. Setters-not sure of the dog on the right.
Gun 2 is a lifter action and gun 4 appears to have a hinge pin.
All have long barrels and may be 10 ga's

No question No. 2 is a Lifter and is a later model with the 1 piece lifter I believe. The two types had a different shape and thickness. I also would bet it is a 10 gauge from the looks. No.4 I would put my best guess as being a top lever hammer gun. Time based on that could be set with a definite earliest possible date at the transition from 3 piece to 1 piece lifters.

I believe the first gun is a side lever of some sort as already guessed. The enlarged pictures helped.

Somebody should be able to take a guess as to grade from the checkering in the enlargement of No.4.

I am not sure gun number 2 is a lifter, when I blow it up larger and look at the colors and contours, I believe what we are seeing could be the bottom corner of his coat and not a lifter mechanism. Looking at the frame sculpting I think gun 2 and 3 are the same manufacturer though.

Anyone think guy number 3 is attired a little different for this group between the hat and the hip boots?

Gun number 4 is at least a Grade 2 judging by the blank space in the wood around the forend latch before the checkering begins.





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Possibility of Red and White Irish Setter.

I agree that the first three dogs appear to be English Setters, but because of its muzzle, ears and expression of the dog on the right, tells me that there's some English Springer Spaniel close up in its lineage.

If we put the dog on the right up against a nasty Chesapeake Bay Retriever, I would put my money on that brown setter.

Odd, their style of having only the top button of their hunting coats fastened.

When I was kid, I remember a lot of the old guys hunting that way when it was warm. I always assumed they had so much in all the pockets, the coat flapped around and pulled on them too much is left to hang free.

Maybe the Victorian version of "pants down below the crack". Seriously though, it's a great picture.

Thanks for all the comments. As promised I removed the wood back, and found the following on the back of the picture:

Logo - Forshew, Photographer, Hudson, N.Y.

Hand writing - Messrs Kerby

Per a internet reference on the Hudson River Vally, Francis “Frank” Forshew was a prolific photographer in upstate New York in the last half of the 19th century. I also took the opportunity to check out a couple areas of interest in the image, particularly shotgun #2. The lifter has a cap on it, and it’s clearly attached to the shotgun. I’m surprised how clear the image is outside the frame. And I really love the faces on all the dogs!

So, if you have a 19th century hammer gun attributed to a Mr. Kerby, it may be one of two in this pic!

That is very cool!

As for the buttoning of the top button only, that was a common practice at one time. For those of us who are fans of Gordon MacQuarrie, we know that "Mr. President" always wore his old brown mackinaw buttoned only at the top.

I hope someone has that lifter. Stranger things have happened.

I thought I ws correct about that lifter because it looks so much like the 1874 I have. Those guys all look like they couldn't button those coats and sit down. A lot of the older guys I mentioned wearing their coats like that in the early fifties had probably bought them in the 20's and were still wearing the same one.

I hadn't paid attention to the men, but after knowing they were likely related, I think they do have a familial appearance. The two on the left almost could be twins, and their features appear to be consistent to their surname roots.

Perhaps many of these gents were dining too sumptuously and their coats would not encircle their ample girth!!

Your picture immediately reminded me of the picture of the Widgeon Duck Club's J.A. Hannah published in Larry Baer's Parker books --

Attachment 105591

I have looked at the pic's a bunch of times.

I am sure the first 3 dogs left to right are E Setters. The 4th dog is certainly likely a red and white setter as these were here early.

My wife who is a pro genealogist says the two fellows on the left are either brothers or father and son.

The guns are certainly interesting. I think the gun on the far left could be a Lefever side cocker. Just MHO.

This looks like a likely group of hunters that may have frequented "the drowned grounds" in Orange County NY.

I really like the "tall spats" on the guy on the left. I want a pair like that.

Definitely not. The gun is a side-lever opening hammer gun. Somewhat similar to this gun --

Attachment 105598

The Lefever side cocker cocked internal hammers. The lever went into the side, not on the bottom of the frame.

Attachment 105599

I always fasten just the top button on my vest. Ease of movement? Beer gut? I really can't remember why, but...

https://i.imgur.com/GOBuC6Xl.jpg

Looks pretty dapper to me!

Dave: You are correct it does appear to be an opening device and after another look I think those are those are back action locks.

That practice goes back at least to the Civil War. Union soldiers were issued loose fitting "sack coats" and were required to keep their top button buttoned in most non-combat situations. Enlisted and junior officers (lieutenants and captains) wore single breasted coats and senior officers wore double breasted. In this 1885 16th Conn. reunion photo the vets are buttoned-up per regulations.

Thanks, Garth, and others. What a great thread.

A bird vest that fits great at home doesn't fit the same way with a couple of cockbirds in the game pocket, so we loosen the buttons.

Not sure about those hand cockers, but the Dogs L-R Irish red and white setter, English setter, Irish red and white setter, American water spaniel. The leggings on the right gent look to about mid 1890's military style. Changed my mindon the two white dogs. They are either English water spaniels(extinct by 1930) or clumber spaniels. the front legs are to short and stocky for a setter

This is totally off topic but those leggings reminded me. The scourge of the small town where I grew up - and a treasure trove for us kids - was Gene Renner’s junk yard which sat smack dab in the middle of Main Street. Gene was the typical grizzled old recluse whose house on the outskirts had just about as much junk as his business. How or why the junk yard came to be where it was I never knew. Gene sat it the ramshackle building that served as the office and we would gather up scrap metal wherever we could find it and sell it to him; he’d weigh it up on his old balance scale and pay us in cash.

He allowed us to wander the yard at will and when we found a treasure - a particularly cool auto emblem for example, or a part for some project we had in the works - he’d scratch his whiskered chin, come up with a price off the top of his head, and off we’d go.

The real allure though was the back room which was filled with all kinds of army surplus stuff; leggings similar to the ones in that photo, shelter halves that buttoned together to form a simple tent, all manner of packs and bags, gas masks, and on and on. Our war games were better equipped than a lot of national guard units :)!

The town finally succeeded in getting rid of Gene’s yard some time after I left; there’s a bank sitting there now. Kids are different now and probably don’t care, but they don’t have Renners to prowl around in and I think that’s sad.

Phil, for a good laugh you should read “Grogan’s War Surplus” by Patrick McManus. Those places were like candy stores for us kids.

We had a similar WWII surplus place in Woburn, the next town over, named Slotnick's. We got all kinds of stuff there and I got a infantryman's waist jacket that fit me perfectly. I loved that jacket and wore it all the time, even with the frayed elbows and holes... which I pretended were bullet holes. :eek:





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I searched through our local one and settled on a pair of nuclear bomb protection goggles, with circular adjustable polarizers. I looked like one of the 1950's soldiers standing in a group in Nevada staring at a mushroom cloud. Even at that time I remember questioning why they needed to be adjustable. If you need them, you REALLY need them.